AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After my shift from hell,I'm wiping down the counter while Grizz, the owner, is chatting with some stragglers. I peer over at him and remember the day we met.
It was the same afternoon Mags had introduced herself, aka lunch-napped me. My first thought was that Grizz represented the stereotypical mountain man: a buff, bearded, tatted tank of a guy with a man bun. Then, I took a closer look. His clothes didn't match his rugged demeanor. He wore jeans and a flannel, but everything was high end—name brands you couldn't buy in a town like this.
He was in his late twenties to early thirties, and his appearance and young age were not what I would've expected from the person who owned this bar.
However, the biggest surprise was when Mags told him I would be working here from now on, and he simply nodded. Grizz barely spoke a word until it was time for my interview—if you could have called it that. The way he watched me while I chatted with Mags about our new living arrangement unnerved me. But once he started quizzing me on mixology, the odd tension evaporated. We fell into an easy conversation, and I passed with flying colors. By the end, I felt as comfortable in his presence as if I had known him for years.
I didn't get to analyze this new development further because when I entered his office to fill out my paperwork, I stopped short at the sight. His office was full of monitors and TV screens. Grizz was a trader by day and bar owner by night. That explained how he could afford this place and those fancy clothes. He wasn't in need of money. How he ended up in Stonebriar, though, I still had no idea. There was no way he was a native Montanan.
The front door swings open, and I'm ripped out of the memory.
My boss is about to bark at whoever decides to walk in at almost two in the morning, but stops when he recognizes the intruder.
"What are you doing here?" I grin broadly.
"What? I can't come by and make sure my girl gets home safe?" Kiwi smirks as he walks around the bar and pulls me into a hug.
"Of course you can, you idiot!" I smack him against his chest. "But didn't you have plans tonight?"
"Plans changed," he replies. I catch the brief flash of disappointment flitter across his features. I know him better than he knows himself.
"Kiwinski!" Grizz snarls. "Stop distracting my employee from her job. I want to close up."
Grizz refuses to call Kiwi by his nickname—or his first name, for that matter—and to anyone who didn't know my boss, this outburst would've resulted in an immediate release of the bladder.
"Finally!" Mags rounds the corner. "I texted you hours ago."
I glance between them. "What's going on?" I ask suspiciously. It's never a good sign when Mags calls Kiwi for backup.
She plants herself on a stool right in front of me, and Kiwi drapes his arm over my shoulder. "Mags here said something was off with you. You served someone a Missouri Mule instead of a Moscow Mule."
Mags opens her arms as if to say, "See?"
"So…" Kiwi places a kiss on my temple. "Spill. What's going on?"
My gaze drops to my feet, and my heart immediately starts hammering in my chest as I remember my dumbass move a few hours ago.
"He saw me," I whisper, not making eye contact.
"Fuck!"
"Shit."
CHAPTERTWO
Thank fuckwe don't have regular practice today. Monday is the team's rest day—rest meaning easy weight training and a three-mile jog around campus. I haven't had a full day off in…no clue. But that's exactly what I need. No downtime means no time to think.
I'm sitting in my last class before I have to head to the field house. Next to me, Kai's cheek rests on his arms, and he's snoring softly.
I flick his ear. "Wake up, fucker!"
I peer toward the front of the room to make sure the prof hasn't noticed my roommate sleeping again through the lecture. Half the time, Kai is hammered or sleeps in class, yet he still passes all his coursework.
Kaiden Raynolds is the son and sole heir to Raynolds Publishing, one of the first big publishing houses out of Europe and number three worldwide. He's on the team, but unlike me, he's playing for the fun of it. He calls it a good workout. To me, it'smy future. A future that was taken from me two years ago, and I'm fighting to take it back.
"Duuuuude," he moans and swats at my hand, which gets Professor Rank's attention.
"Mr. Raynolds!" his voice booms through the massive room.
